Part Two - Robin

It was a thing with the sky, a great pulsing mass of light shining behind the blueness, and flat glare from the sea, and a solemn peal of sound: “I AM.”

Robin turned her head away and squinted at the footpath. This, perhaps, was what it was like having a migraine. “OK,” she said, “you guys, it’s time we went back and met your Mum.” And they turned and walked back along the waterfront walkway, her face averted from the throbbing light of the sky, and her children running around yelling. At Oriental Beach they had to stop and look for Alex’s lost train, and a man walked into the sea.

She stood there for a moment, trying to believe she’d just seen through her squinting sore eyes a man in a suit, with business shoes, and a leather satchel walk into the scudding foam and slick oily waves, straightly as an automaton. Then she stood there for another moment, in existential dither, waiting for someone else to go and rescue him.

No-one else was there, no-one else was going to dive into the sea ahead of her.

“Fuck,” she said.

So she hauled off her winter coat and gave it to Robot, and unhooked the sling and gave Aroha to her older sister, and awkwardly yanked off her sneakers and hobbled into the water after him. It was monstrously cold. The waves which had looked so placid on the shore fought against her, smashing into her face, and tugging at her feet; but for that one brief moment when she first got her hand on the crazy guy’s collar and she felt warm, as if bathing in a tropical sea, and smelled sweet spices, and heard the humming whisper of something: “i am. i am i am i am.” She felt the soft caress of something around her ankle and jerked her foot away.

“Come on, you fucking idiot!” she yelled at the guy. He flinched, and looked surprised, as if he didn’t know how he happened to be in the sea, and how dare she lay her hand upon him. She tugged his collar harder, and grabbed his arm with her other hand and started pulling. It was going well until a sudden sneaky wave ripped her feet out from under her and she tumbled yelping into the water.

He pulled her up and the two of them staggered, thoroughly wet, onto the gritty sand of the beach, to a gang of cheering children. “It’s not,” she said, shivering, “like you have to just go do crazy stuff like that. There’s, there’s Lifeline and people you can talk to, and doctors can give you pills to stop you feeling so sad.” She blinked and looked up at the man, familiar in his sodden clothes. She reached out a hand (forbidden) to wipe the hair and sand from his face. “Oh. You’re that guy.”

He pointed, gasping, at the sea. “Can’t you hear them?”

“Can’t you hear the mermaids singing?” she said vengefully. Robin draped her coat over her shoulders against the chill of the whipping wind and shuddered. The guy’s lips were blue and his face was a ghastly shade of pallor. “We need to get warm.”

She gathered up the kids and limped up the stairs back to the walkway, hobbled across the road to one of the little cafes that tucked themselves along the coastline. She didn’t look back to see if he was following her, but by the time she was at the counter ordering hot chocolates the door opened behind her and he staggered in. “I’ll pay,” he said.

“You don’t have to –” she said, and checked the card in her pocket, “you don’t have to, Noel.”

“No, no, I got you wet, it’s the least I can do.”

Robin made a face and dumped her stuff by the table. Christie was flattened against the window peering out at the sea, but the light from the window was still making her wince and the paracetamol in her bag hadn’t kicked in yet. She pulled out her phone and made a call.

“Yeah, Claire? Hi, how’s it going?”

A wad of paper towels landed on the table. The suicide guy had sat down in front of her and was wiping the water off his face with them.

“I know we were going to meet on Willis St, but can you come and get us?”

The two boys had joined Christie at the window and were pointing at something excitedly. Robin put the phone down with a guilty thud, a reminder of too many bailouts before. “Look,” she said, “I know you’re lonely, but there’s other things you can do.”

“I wasn’t trying to. Um. Hurt myself. There are things in the water.”

Robin rolled her eyes. Robot said: “Do you think it’s a giant squid?” and she looked at the window – all the other patrons, and the waitress were plastered against the glass.

“OK, so maybe there’s something in the water. Like dolphins or something.”

They both shut up then, and sipped their hot chocolate until Claire breezed in, looking well groomed. Robin slunk out the door clutching her pile of wet clothes. Then she stopped, dropped the soggy mess in the boot of the car and walked back into the cafe. She scribbled her number on one of the paper towels. “If you get depressed again, call me, OK?” She glared at the man, at Noel, “this is not me hitting on you, you get that?” and stalked out again.

It was only later, when she was warm from a shower, and in pyjamas eating fish and chips and ice cream; later when she turned on the tv to watch the 6 o’clock news, wondering if there really had been dolphins in the water; it was only then that she got scared. On the tv (reporting live), the wharf had collapsed. All the people were in the water, and there was something in there with them, and the people were screaming.

i am.